December flew by like an icy, winter wind, scattering wrapping paper, dried up pine needles, and a smattering of holiday-themed lunch notes. So before I get too mired in the new year, here areDecember’s SuperLunchNotes!

I didn’t try to force themes onto each week, mainly because there were very few full weeks in December due to regular recurrences of holidays, bad weather, and sickness. Yet each note did have a bit of Christmas flair… or Hanukkah pizzaz in one case.

Star Butterfly is the lead character in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, one of the new batch of weird and wacky cartoons Jon has been watching lately. Though odd, I dig that Star is a powerful princess who takes no guff AND has a super sparkly wand! And several head-only Unicorns as pets. Like I said… odd.

For those of you not familiar with Starro the Conqueror, he was one of the first adversaries of the Justice League. In fact, he appears on the cover of the comic featuring the very first appearance of the super team. But the reason he(?) showed up in note form is because I recently introduced Jon to Captain Carrot. The premiere issue finds the Captain (and His Amazing Zoo Crew) battling everyone’s favorite mind-controlling, monster-sized starfish.

One of my favorite parts of the holidays is rewatching Christmas movies. Since Jon is still relatively young, he often doesn’t remember having seen them in previous years. Though he got a little bored during A Charlie Brown Christmas, I later used that to my advantage by playing the soundtrack at bedtime. It lulled my hopped-up 8-year-old right to sleep.

12.11 Charlie Brown

One of the great things about the music to A Charlie Brown Christmas is that much of it serves as a great post-holidays winter soundtrack. This one is a particular non-Christmassy favorite.

12.12 Ant-Man |12.13 Lumière

While Lumiére is very likely not Jewish, I couldn’t resist transforming his candelabra-ness into a makeshift menorah in honor of Hanukkah. If nothing else, all of the music in Beauty and the Beast was written by a Jewish dude.

12.14 Kylo Ren |12.15 Luke Skywalker

I did a batch of Star Wars-themed notes leading up to the latest chapter’s premiere. Much has been written about The Last Jedi (both favorable and not), so I’ll keep this short. We LOVED it. Even the final battle between Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker, with all its over-the-top shooting and Matrix-style saber-dodging and Jay-Z posturing. And wouldn’t it be cool if Kylo actually had a candy cane lightsaber?

I was worried the Porgs (Porg?) would be way too cutesie and overused (a la the Ewoks), but there was just enough for an occasional laugh. The tradition of weird little creatures populating the background of Star Wars films remained intact without spiraling into a Jar-Jar level distraction.

12.18 Porg

12.19 Wolverine |12.20 Buddy the Elf |12.21 The Grinch

A couple more holiday movies made an appearance at lunchtime, namely the titular characters from Elf and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated version, not the Jim Carrey atrocity).

POLL: So what’s your favorite Christmas movie? And do you watch them other, non-holiday times of year?

I’m guessing your favorite probably isn’t the much-derided Star Wars Holiday Speical. If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and don’t. But if you’ve got a slow day and are a glutton for punishment, I’ve got you covered…

How could I not close out the holiday season/month/year with my all-time favorite Star Wars character, decked out in sparkling lights and redeeming himself from the aforementioned pile of Wookiee poop?

12.22 Chewbacca

Hope your holidays/month/year was both fun and nutritious! Here’s to a tasty/doodly/superheroic 2018!